Professor Johanna Gibson BA (Hons I), MA, PGDipAppSci, JD (Queensland), PhD (Edinburgh) Solicitor and Barrister to the Supreme Court of Victoria, Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law, Director, QMIPRI
Johanna Gibson is Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director of the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute (QMIPRI) in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS). Johanna is also the Academic Director for the College's QUEDOS project in professional development." Johanna holds first class degrees in cultural and critical theory, animal sciences, and law. Before joining CCLS, Johanna practised law in Melbourne, Australia at Allens Arthur Robinson, specialising in Intellectual Property, Media and Communications Law and Competition Law.
Research Interests
Much of Johanna’s research is concerned with intellectual property and socio-economic development. She has consulted to the European Patent Office (EPO) on future patent policy, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) on the creative economy, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) on advanced education in patent law, and has participated in expert groups on copyright, digital rights management, and human rights and intellectual property. She maintains research interests in legal theory and intellectual property law, traditional knowledge and cultural diversity, and the relationship between intellectual property systems and the narration of culture and innovation.
Johanna works also on current policy and developments in the areas of biotechnology and intellectual property aspects of medicine, and her recent book, Intellectual Property, Medicine and Health (2009) examines the relationship between intellectual property, public health and human rights. She has also been supported by an AHRC research grant to examine the implications of patents and related protection for biotechnologies, and the impact on socio-cultural and economic development and diversity, in the research project, Patenting Lives. The first volume of research from the project, Patenting Lives: Life Patents, Development and Culture, was published in 2008 and the work includes an ongoing project blog. Johanna is currently completing another book project, Traditional Knowledge, Law and Practice, for Oxford University Press, to be published in 2010. She is also general editor of a new intellectual property series for Ashgate: Intellectual Property, Theory, Culture, and a series for Edward Elgar Publishing: Intellectual Property Futures.
Johanna teaches Intellectual Property Aspects of Medicine for which she established the IPMed blog, and Traditional Knowledge and Genetic Resources on the Queen Mary LLM programme. She has also established the TK Community blog, which was launched at the 13th Session of the WIPO IGC in October 2008. She is also a member of the Education Committee of CIPA and is consulting to the EPO on intellectual property education, devising university strategy for Bulgaria and Norway.
Selected Recent Publications
Books (Author)
Intellectual Property, Medicine and Health: Current Debates, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2009, ISBN: [URL]
Creating Selves: Intellectual Property and the Narration of Culture, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, 178, ISBN: 0754647072 [URL]
Community Resources: Intellectual Property, International Trade and Protection of Traditional Knowledge, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005, 387, ISBN: 0754644367 [URL]
Books (Editor)
Patenting Lives: Life Patents, Culture and Development (Editor), Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2008, ISBN: 0754671046, [URL]
Book Chapters
The Lay of the Land: The Geography of Traditional Cultural Expression, in Graber CB & Burri-Nenova M (eds), Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions in a Digital Environment, Edward Elgar, 2008, pp 182-201, ISBN 978 1 84720 921 4 [URL]
Knowledge and Other Values: Intellectual Property and the Limitations for Traditional Knowledge, in: G. Westkamp (ed), Emerging Issues in Modern Intellectual Property: Trade, Technology, Market Freedom, Essays in Memory of Herchel Smith, Queen Mary Studies in Intellectual Property Vol. XII, Edward Elgar, 2007, pp. 309-318, ISBN 1 84542 775 0 [URL]
Audiences in Tradition: Traditional Knowledge and the Public Domain, in C Waelde & H MacQueen (eds), Intellectual Property: The Many Faces of the Public Domain, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2007, pp 74-188, ISBN: 1845428747 [URL]
Communities Out of Place, in C. Maida (ed), Sustainability and Communities of Place. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007, pp 63-81, ISBN: 978-1-84545-016-8 [URL]
Open Access, Open Source and Free Software: Is There a Copy Left?, in F. Macmillan (ed), New Directions in Copyright Law: Volume 4, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2007, pp 127-143, ISBN: 1845422639 [URL]
Community and the Exhaustion of Culture: Creative Territories in Traditional Cultural Expressions, in F. Macmillan & K. Bowrey (eds), New Directions in Copyright Law: Volume 3, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2006, pp 15-36, ISBN: 1845422627 [URL]
A Right to My Public: Copyright, Human Right, or Privacy?, in F. Macmillan & K. Bowrey (eds), New Directions in Copyright Law: Volume 3, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2006, pp 115-131, ISBN: 1845422627 [URL]
Community Resources: Intellectual Property Systems, Traditional Knowledge, and the Global Legal Authority of Community, in L. Merino and J. Robson (eds), Managing the Commons: Indigenous Rights, Economic Development and Identity, Coyoacan: IASCP, 2006, pp 53-65, ISBN: 9688177377 [URL]
Open to Question: The Open Congress Event and its Users, in M Vishmidt (ed), Media Mutandis: a NODE.London Reader, London: NODE.London, 2006, ISBN: 0955243505 [URL]
Freedoms and Knowledge, Access and Silence: Traditional Knowledge and Freedom of Speech, in F. Macmillan (ed), New Directions in Copyright Volume 2, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2006, pp 198-221, ISBN: 1845422619 [URL]
Community in Resources, Tradition in Knowledge, in S. Herbechter and M. Higgins (eds) Returning (to) Communities: Theory, Culture and Political Practice of the Communal, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006, pp 173-206, ISBN: 9042018984 [URL]
Journal Articles
The UDHR and the Group: Individual and Community Rights to Culture [2008] 30(1) Hamline Journal of Public Law & Poliy 285-318, ISSN: 0736-1033
"The Discovery of Invention: Gene Patents and the Question of Patentability," [2007] 12 Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 45-56, ISSN: 0971-5544 [URL]
"Consumer Protection:" Consumer Strategies and the European Market in Genetically Modified Foods , [2006], 5 Northwestern Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property, 176-191[URL]
Markets in Tradition: Traditional Agricultural Communities and the Impact of GMOs [2006] 3(3) SCRIPT-ed 216-225, ISSN: 1744-2567 [URL]
Zur Durchsetzbarkeit von Immaterialgüterrechten in Bulgarien (Co-author with M. Blakeney and G. Westkamp) [2006] 15(9) Wirtschaft und Recht in Osteuropa 271-276, ISSN: 0941-6293 [URL]
The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property: A Valuable Affair [2006] 3(1) SCRIPT-ed 2, ISSN: 1744-2567 [URL]
Patenting Lives: Life Patents, Culture, and Development [2006] 11(2) Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 103-112, ISSN: 0971-5544 [URL]
Patenting Lives [2005] 2(3) SCRIPT-ed 319, ISSN: 1744-2567 [URL]
Intellectual Property Systems, Traditional Knowledge, and the Legal Authority of Community [2004] 26 European Intellectual Property Review 280-290, ISSN: 0142-0461 [URL]
Indigenous Resources and the International Context for Protection [2004] 1(1) SCRIPT-ed 48-82, ISSN: 1744-2567 [URL]
Trading Places With Communities: Toward the Protection of Traditional Knowledge in the Context of International Trade and Global Markets [2003] 2(1) Journal of International Trade Law and Policy, ISSN: 1477-0024 [URL]
The National Encroachment Upon Community Space: Recent Australian Decisions in Indigenous Rights to Natural Resources [2003] 2(2) Xchanges [URL]
Self-Preservation is the First Law of Nature: Conserving the Cultural Diversity in India's Biological Resources [2003] 24(1) South Asian Review 62-75, ISSN: 0275-9527 [URL]
The Cultural Diversity in Biodiversity: The Protection of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Resources in a Global Context [2003] 2 (Spring) Situation Analysis 46-61, ISSN: 1478-2014 [URL]
Justice of Precedent, Justness of Equity: Equitable Protection and Remedies for Indigenous Intellectual Property [2001] 6(4) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 1-21, ISSN: 1323-7756 [URL]
Commissioned Reports
European Patent Office, Dissemination of IP Knowledge in Universities: Road Map for Bulgarian Universities, 2008
Generation Scotland: Legal and Ethical Aspects (Co-author with G. Laurie), Edinburgh: AHRC Research Centre, 2005, ISBN: 0954971701 [URL]
Postgraduate Supervision
Professor Gibson welcomes students in all areas of intellectual property and legal theory, agriculture, environment, biodiversity and genetic resources, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and health, intellectual property and culture (including film and visual theory), traditional knowledge and cultural expressions, human rights and intellectual property (including rights to development, health and culture).
Many of Johanna Gibson's publications and working papers are available on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN).
